Topaz Photo AI

[glorybound]

How can AI software be so bad? Have you tried Topaz Photo AI? I have had it for about a year (guessing) and have yet to get anything good out of it. The left is my final, and the right is their AI. It would be great to have software to help, but this destroys!

[rusteberg]

Destruction is purely in the hands of the user.... not the app

[rusteberg]

Destruction is in the hands of the user.... not the app

[Pixelcon]

That's impressive.

[rusteberg]

It's pretty awesome, James. Especially if you're pushing a lot through GPU and your resolution output is gobbling up a lot of ram. Allows you to get away with high res deliverables you'd have a really hard time producing not that long ago.

I've been using their video version and have been thrilled with how it has performed.

Their AI models are regularly updated as well. Here's a frame example going from 1920 to 4K using one of their older models:

[glorybound]

I am not talking about upscaling. I am talking light and color AI.

[rusteberg]

Yes I know.

[rusteberg]

You should go over to their forum and let them know your concerns.

[glorybound]

It is in beta now, so I am sure it'll improve. Sometimes, I can overlay their version with my version, with a low opacity, and sometimes, it gives my images a little pop. Almost every AI thing I have tried has been underwhelming.

[JuhaHo]

Yes, I can see the color shift. Clients mostly want correct colors for their product renderings.

Just this week I decided to change my color managing. I think being too particular about colors is actually making rendered images less attractive. What if I just calibrate material colors and camera white balancing letting Vray take care the rest. I would just skip color tuning in Photoshop.

[suzanne_doherty]

Over the years I've been doing less and less colour adjustments in post, instead focusing my time into working with the lighting, textures and post work within Vray and 3Ds Max. There's only so much you can do in post before it starts to break the image and looks odd. Not saying that's 100% true, some people are wizards with Photoshop and matte painting, but for me minimising post work is the key to realism.

Back on-topic, I've used Topaz AI only for upscaling, and I've been incredibly impressed. Upscaling textures has been a game changer.

[glorybound]

Yes, upscaling is fantastic! The other day, somehow, I rendered 1/2 scale. Topaz upscaling worked perfectly to double the resolution; the client didn't question it.